Lewis in, Middleton out against WKU

IU will have its one of its stars starting against Western Kentucky but not the other. Yesterday, Bill Lynch named Kellen Lewis the starter after he wrestled his starting spot back from Ben Chappell. Interesting that Lewis was able to to quickly win the starting job back, especially learning a new system that Chappell had more experience with. I think most people would agree though that Lewis is the better player and over the course of the season gives IU a better chance to win.

On the flip side, IU will not have defensive star Greg Middleton and three others against WKU. Middleton, tight end Troy Wagner, safety Brandon Mosley, and defensive end Kyle Kozak were suspended for the season opener. Hopefully it was simply a real team rules issue and not legal or academic trouble.

Kellen Lewis shockingly named starter for season opener

ESPN.com broke the unbelievable news today that Kellen Lewis has been named the starter at quarterback for the season opener Saturday vs. Western Kentucky. I know this is a huge surprise to IU football fans, who never would have imagined that the junior QB would regain his starting job. Lewis threw for over 3000 yards and had 28 passing TDs last year while leading the Hoosiers to their first bowl game in years.

On a serious note, this is what most of us expected, and it’s nice to see that Lewis has worked through whatever his offseason issues were and is ready to play.

IU defeats North Carolina in exhibition

One of the things about IU soccer is that they attract some of the best teams and play one of the toughest schedules in the country. While the basketball team is required to play Division III and Division II teams in their exhibitions, IU goes out and plays top opponents, like #24 North Carolina up in Fort Wayne. And IU blitzed the Tar Heels with three second-half goals to win 3-0.

Neil Wilmarth opened the scoring in the 56th minute, helped out Lee Hagedorn and Will Bruin, who recorded his first (unofficial) point for IU. Hagedorn picked up another assist as Brian Ackley put IU up 2-0 less than 5 minutes later. And with three minutes to go, Kevin Noschang put the game out of reach on a breakaway.

Having not seen the game, there’s still something promising to take away from the box score and recap. IU missed some chances early and over the past few years, that has led to frustration, which has led to IU losing or drawing games after dominating the first half if they don’t score early. So it’s promising to see IU defeat a solid team, even in an exhibition, by scoring in the second half after struggling to put away chances in the first. Hopefully this is an early indication that the firepower will be there this year, not just early but for the whole 90 minutes.

IU picks up 2011 recruit and a compliance staffer

IU got two young new additions on the path to restoring the reputation of the basketball program competitively as well as with the rules. First, the player. Matt Carlino, a 6′2″ combo guard from Arizona committed to IU shortly after attending Tom Crean’s recent elite camp. Carlino is ranked as the #8 player in the country by Hoop Scoop, and will likely be one of the top 50 players in the country when Rivals and Scout begin ranking the class of 2011.

On the administrative side, IU hired Jenna Jerden to be the new director of compliance. Jerden is a recent grad of the IU School of Law - Indianapolis, and has interned for both the NCAA and IUPUI. Having grown up in Bloomington, she’s familiar with the athletic department and the university.

Hat tip for both: Inside the Hall

Finch receives NCAA waiver, will play this year

It’s a year later, but arguably the best recruit in IU Football history will suit up for the Hoosiers this season. Jerimy Finch received a waiver to play this year, rather than sit out as a transfer. The NCAA found that Finch’s case was similar to others where immediate eligiblity after a transfer has been granted. Finch will be a huge addition to IU’s secondary, moving back to his safety spot after suiting up as a linebacker for Florida last year. And if my math is correct, Finch will have all four years of eligibility available because he should be eligible for a medical redshirt based on only playing three games for the Gators before breaking his leg.

Update: In somewhat related news, Tandon Doss is also back with the team after being held out of practice due an academic issue that was just cleared up.

And sorry for the extended absence. I just moved from Bloomington to Los Angeles, and am just now getting settled. So expect light posting until the beginning of the season.

McLeod hired as third Crean assistant

Today the Indiana faithful welcome Roshown McLeod to the family, as according to The Hoosier Scoop the former Blue Devil has accepted the vacant third assistant position. As previously speculated this hire was made after the summer recruiting period, presumably so that McLeod could operate free of the restrictions placed upon Crean and his staff for the duration of the summer.  I think this is a solid hire that incoming players should be a fan of - like Tom Crean says, “if he were healthy, he’d still be a professional basketball player.” He’s been to the next level. He knows what it takes to get there. Color me a little concerned about his previous waffling on his readiness to coach at this level, but I’m nevertheless happy with the hire.

McRobbie names AD search committee

President McRobbie named the committee that will select the new athletic director, and the seven member committee includes a lot of long time faculty and athletics personal:

  • IU Vice President of Engagement Bill Stephan, a guy McRobbie hired, and the committee chair
  • Tom Crean, no introduction needed
  • Jerry Yeagley, former soccer coach, and member of the committee that hired Crean
  • Anthony Thompson, former IU running back, College Football HOFer, and assistant director for development
  • James Winbush, dean of graduate studies, and the chair of the University Athletics Committee, the faculty committee charged with oversight of the athletic department
  • Mary Ann Rohleder, basically the head of HR for the athletic department
  • Bruce Jaffee, the faculty athletics representative, who is the day-to-day faculty liaison with the athletic department.

The only thing that strikes me is the lack of any outside committee members, which suggests that the sort of usual suspects for the committee, like Harry Gonso, might be in the running.

The IU Twilight Zone, part II

“There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call … the Twilight Zone.”

Consider if you will for a moment the possibility that DJ White never broke his foot. Entertain the idea that the Marco Killingsworth/DJ White frontcourt pairing came to fruition. Envision if you will a reality where Mike Davis’ help arrived and worked. What would have happened?

Obviously IU would have been more successful during the 2005-2006 season. The pairing of DJ and Marco would have been one of the best frontcourts in the country. Both had the ability to pound you down low and step out and hurt you. By the end of the season, IU also have a nice little rotation at the three, Marshall Strickland was solid at the two, and Earl Calloway had emerged as the starting point guard.

DJ would have erased many of Marco’s shortcomings. His pre-injury athleticism would have made up for Marco’s inability to get off the ground. He would have protected the rim better and caused the man Marco was guarding to have another defender to think about when DJ came from the help side. Simply put, the team would have been better.

But how much better? In the few games they played together, DJ and Marco never looked in sync. At some point you simply have too much firepower in a certain area and they get in each other’s way. How much of that was the lack of practice and time together and how much was simply never going to be overcome? My guess is a significant amount would be overcome but there would be a bit of frustration.

So what would the result have been? You would have to believe IU would have won the Duke showdown. I would believe IU would have won the game at Indiana State. Maybe IU still loses most of the Big Ten road games they lost, but they likely beat Iowa at home and possibly UConn and maybe even Penn State, whipping out most of the devastating five game losing streak that prompted Davis’ resignation. IU also probably advances in the Big Ten Tournament to the final against Iowa. That probably gives IU a higher seed, they avoid Gonzaga who was within seconds of making the Elite Eight, and probably go to at least the Sweet 16.

The larger question is whether this would have been enough to save Davis’ job. There were a lot of fans who were of the opinion that Davis had to go, no matter what the level of success was. Now, considering that Davis did not have enough success in the won/loss column, it’s hard to take IU fans at their word that they do not care how much Davis won if they had to watch his offense. When fans though are saying that a national championship is not enough to earn a contract extension, that says a lot.

I guess the biggest issue would be if Davis had made the Final Four. That would have made the expectations of the Davis era very clear. Mediocre seasons until Davis hit a good recruiting class, which would build up into a great team. He would never get more than you thought out of his talent, but when he occasionally got the talent, he would succeed. I don’t think it would have. My feeling is that if DJ hadn’t gotten hurt, anything short of a national title in 2006 would not be enough to keep Davis employed at IU to this day.

Tom Crean gets contract extension before his first game

You go to LA for a couple days and this is the type of news that gets dropped on you. Tom Crean’s contract was believed to for 8 years at an average of $2.3 million per, or about $18 million. In actuality, it appears Crean’s contract will include two more years, and the total value of which will be close to $23 million. So it appears that Crean has gotten a $4.5 million contract extension before he’s coached his first game.

Technically, Crean is not getting an extension. It appears he’s simply negotiated more years, up to now over what he had at Marquette, which was a 10 year contract he signed in 2006 which ran through the 2016-2017 season. This means Crean should be “locked up” (at least as locked up as college coaches can be) through 2017-2018. It also hopefully means that IU is avoiding the odd situation that occured in Lexington this year where Billy Gillispie operated without a finalized contract for a whole season, and still has not signed a formal deal with the University of Kentucky.

For better or worse, IU appears to be committing to Crean and hopefully Crean to IU. In reality though, this neither locks IU or Crean together any longer as long as the buyouts do not change. It will still cost IU $3 million to fire Crean before the final year of the contract, and Crean’s buyout to leave IU will likely decrease from $3 million to $1 million over the life of the contract, just like it did in the MOU (pdf).

The better message that’s being sent though is that stability is key for IU Basketball. While IU fans ask for stability and healing and reconcilation, they rarely want to offer up the money and security to a coach to allow him to do those things. Here, Crean has a certain level of stability to build the program slowly, carefully, and by making all the proper steps, not shortcuts. While I disagree with people who see the program as being light years away from where Sampson, Davis, or Knight in his last years had it, it will still take Crean a while to get to where IU Basketball is “supposed” to be: regularly competing for national titles. Even entertaining the fiction that Crean is “locked up” for 10 years is a big step toward getting to that level.

Finally, it’s not hard to see how this might have happened. While Tom Crean certainly had a lot of security before, a lot of that security disappeared when Rick Greenspan announced he was leaving at the end of the year. Crean will not be coaching for the AD that hired him, not to mention an AD who had to have this hire work in order to keep the job. If Crean wasn’t up to snuff in any way, Greenspan certainly would not have survived. Now that arguably Crean’s biggest backer is gone, it may have been important for him to get whatever extra security he could.

The IU Twilight Zone, part one

“There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call … the Twilight Zone.”

Consider if you will for a moment the possibility that Kelvin Sampson was not a man addicted to phone calls. Entertain, if only for a fleeting instance, the idea that Kelvin Sampson was truly a man who had made a mistake and had learned to walk a new path. Envision, if you will, a reality where IU Basketball continued to have an (relatively) untarnished legacy.

Well, we know for starters that Sampson and Greenspan would still be employed by the university. We also know that most of the mass player exodus would not have occurred. Coming off IU’s Elite Eight bid, the future would look very bright for IU. A veteran team would be coming back, albeit minus Eric Gordon and DJ White, who both jumped to the NBA. Also minus Brandon McGee, who remained in Sampson’s doghouse and showed no signs of climbing out.

But Sampson also brought in another highly touted recruiting class to do battle with a Big Ten that looks somewhat weaker following the graduation of numerous Wisconsin contributors (like that ever matters), Ohio State’s NBA casualties, and Michigan State’s loss of veteran leader Drew Neitzel. With two of three scholarships left to play with, Sampson would probably have made a push for similar players as Tom Crean did. Josh Harrelson would have been a quick target, given Sampson’s penchant for juco players. Maybe he lands Emmanuel Negedu. Perhaps Tijan Jobe or Verdell Jones are on this theoretical IU squad. Regardless, it’s still a team in much better shape, although with IU fans once against asking where the post presence is coming from amongst a young and untested group.

Football would be slightly affected. Kellen Lewis’ suspension, seen by many IU fans, particularly those who pay more (too much?) attention to the basketball program, as part of a growing pattern would instead be an isolated incident. It would be Blake Powers and Kellen Lewis, not Blake Power, Kellen Lewis, and the entire basketball team.

Or would it? Would the academic casualties have happened? We’ll never know. Even if they were motivated to try I doubt most college aged kids have the ability to look at themselves and answer the question “Where did you go off the tracks?” Was it Sampson’s lack of focus on academics? Was it the strain of supporting their coach throughout the season? Or was it the removal of a father figure that caused a total collapse? I doubt even those involved will ever know for sure.

This was part one of the IU Twilight Zone, looking back at past events over IU’s very recent history and asking the question of how it would change the present. To see the rest of the series, check out the Twilight Zone archive.